Saturday, May 7, 2016

US Military Team Deploys to Yemen to Help Rout al-Qaeda Militants

The Pentagon revealed on Friday that the US has deployed troops to Yemen to assist in keeping a key port city from falling to al-Qaeda. The troops were deployed specifically to help plan defense and attacks, provide intelligence, logistics aid, such as refueling, and naval interdiction. The Pentagon will not reveal how many troops were deployed, calling the force a "small number". A US naval force is also stationed near Yemen in the Gulf of Aden. Yemen's US backed government fell to rebels last year, and has been in a civil war since then. The war has developed into a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia with Iran backing the Houthi rebels and the Saudis backing the government forces. Al-Qaeda saw the chaos develop and decided to take advantage of it and took large amounts of territory for themselves. Currently Saudi Arabia and the US are conducting airstrikes against al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Luke Blocker

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/05/06/united-states-military-team-yemen/84032856/

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